Quick question on prospecting mode

[Curt_in_W.Mass]

Going to hunt for a lost gold ring,lost in early 70s..going to try prospecting mode and wondered what is lowest percentage i should be digging...as i mean at 30% and lower to 10% should i dig..or is 20% low enough?..just dont want to make swiss cheese outta her lawn...i wont, but sure ill be digging.

 

[Nugget Hunter Smith]

You are reading the screen backwards. It is a probability indicator. I dig everything from 70% on down. It is telling you the probability of whether the item is iron or not. So if it says it is 80 or 90% probability that the item is iron I would believe it.
I mainly use the MXT to do exactly what it was designed for, finding nuggets.

 

[Curt_in_W.Mass]

Hey Nugget Hunter...i realize that it is an indicator on probability on item bieng iron..i was wondering if it says its a 30% chance of bieng iron should i bother digging or should i go down to a 20% chance of bieng iron in order to maybe get a hit on ring...and does a ring have same reading as a comparable nugget..if so what % do you believe it would fall under...a 70% seems fairly high...Curt

 

[Nugget Hunter Smith]

That is a hard question to answer (10,20 or 30%). If you are looking for a gold ring, why use the prospecting mode when the coin/jewelry mode will give you more information. Do you have a comparable size gold ring to make a comparison? Is it a small ladies wedding band or a large man ring? What is the Karat of the lost ring?
All of these factors come into play!
If you find an item in the prospecting mode at 10 or 20%, which is where I would suspect a gold ring to fall, switch over to the coin/jewelry mode and see what extra information you get to make a better decision.

It is hard to compare a nugget to a ring. But the smaller the nugget the more it falls into the iron range and therefore the reason I dig everything below 70%. Tip: you should know most gold rings fall into the foil/pull tab range on most detectors, that is why a lot are missed, for people do not like to dig foil and pull tabs.

Good Luck!